Improved Stereo Matching in Scattering Media by Incorporating a Backscatter Cue

In scattering media, as in underwater or haze and fog in atmosphere, image contrast deteriorates significantly due to backscatter. This adversely affects the performance of many computer vision techniques developed for clear open-air conditions, including stereo matching, when applied to images acqu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE transactions on image processing 2014-12, Vol.23 (12), p.5743-5755
Main Authors: Negahdaripour, Shahriar, Sarafraz, Amin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Backscatter
Backscattering
Cameras
Image processing
Lighting
Matching
Media
Optical imaging
Optical scattering
Reconstruction
Scattering
Three dimensional
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Summary:In scattering media, as in underwater or haze and fog in atmosphere, image contrast deteriorates significantly due to backscatter. This adversely affects the performance of many computer vision techniques developed for clear open-air conditions, including stereo matching, when applied to images acquired in these environments. Since the strength of the scattering depends on the distance to the scene points, the scattering field embodies range information that can be exploited for 3-D reconstruction. In this paper, we present an integrated solution for 3-D structure from stereovision that incorporates the visual cues from both disparity and scattering. The method applies to images of scenes illuminated by artificial sources and natural lighting, and performance improves with discrepancy between the backscatter fields in the two views. Neither source calibration nor knowledge of medium optical properties is required. Instead, backscatter fields at infinity, i.e., stereo images taken with no target in the field of view, are directly employed in the estimation process. Results from experiments with synthetic and real data demonstrate the key advantages of our method.
ISSN:1057-7149
1941-0042
DOI:10.1109/TIP.2014.2358882